I started The Hunger Games because of the movie. Not because I wanted to see the movie, but because I wanted to know why there were movies. In SFF, there are works that become seminal, and whatever the culture is when you join it, you are expected to be able to converse with what has come before. Heinlein should at least produce name recognition. So should Asimov.

I seek out these works (usually the books) to read what has come before. I can’t really critique, for example, the whole arc of feminism in SFF if I’m not familiar with I Will Fear No Evil, or Stranger in a Strange Land. I can’t fully comprehend AI without at least nodding to the Three Laws of Robotics. Just like you can’t really critique modern science fiction movies without nodding in the direction of Star Wars.

I had a feeling, when The Hunger Games movie became such a huge phenomenon – even months and years before release – that I was seeing this happen in real time. Something about these books spoke to people, and they were likely to continue to speak to people. So I needed to read them.

Once I cracked the first book, I found out that these were incredibly “sticky” books. I thought I’d read the first one. I read all three in two days. They were compelling to me for many reasons, but mostly because they had an honest and completely unflinching portrayal of completely mental breakdown.

That’s … well, really stark. Unlike most, I didn’t dislike Mockingjay. I found it difficult to read, but also not a little ballsy.